Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand

‘Just let’s say I’m no longer one of your men, just an independent fugitive.’

‘Agreed then,’ sighed Brezillon.

Drawn in by the lamprey effect, Adamsberg thought. He got up and put his camouflage cap back on. For the first time Brezillon put out his hand to shake. An admission, no doubt, that he was not sure of seeing him alive again.

LIX

BACK IN CLIGNANCOURT, ADAMSBERG PUT ON HIS BULLET-PROOF VEST, holstered his gun and kissed the two old women goodbye.

‘Just a little expedition,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back.’

Not so sure about that, he thought as he went out into the alleyway. What was the point of this unequal high noon confrontation? Was it his last throw, or was he taking a chance to anticipate death, exposing himself to Fulgence’s trident rather than sink into the shadows of the portage trail without ever knowing whether or not he had stabbed Noella? He saw, as if through frosted glass, the young woman’s body trapped under the ice. He could hear her plaintive voice. ‘And you know what he did, my buddy? Poor Noella, all washed up? Has Noella ever told you that before? About the cop from Paris?’

Adamsberg quickened his pace, head down. He couldn’t involve anyone else in his old mosquito trap. The weight of guilt round his neck ever since the Hull murder made him incapable of it. Fulgence might surround himself with henchmen and unleash a bloodbath, killing Danglard, Retancourt, Justin, the whole department. The blood spread before his eyes, carrying off the red robes of Cardinal Richelieu. You’re on your own, young man.

The sex and the name. The idea of dying without ever knowing that seemed crazy, or neglectful. He pulled out the mobile by one of its red feet and called Danglard.

‘Any news?’ the capitaine asked.

‘Might be,’ said Adamsberg prudently. ‘But that aside, I should tell you I have worked out the name of the new father. He’s an unreliable character, whose shoes are not polished.’

‘No? Who is he then?’

‘Just this guy.’

‘Glad you’ve got the answer.’

‘Yes. There’s just one thing I want to know first.’

‘First, before what?’

‘I just want to know the baby’s sex and first name.’

Adamsberg stopped in order to take in the information properly. It wouldn’t stick in his memory if he went on walking.

‘Thanks, Danglard. One last thing. Did you know it works with frogs as well as toads? The cigarette thing.’

As he walked down to the Marais district, a gloomy fog surrounded him. He came to as he saw his block of flats, and looked carefully around. Brezillon appeared to have kept his word, there were no watchers around; the way was clear out of the shadows into the light.

He looked quickly round the flat, then wrote five letters: one each for Raphael, for his family, for Danglard, for Camille and for Retancourt. On an impulse he wrote a quick note for Sanscartier as well. Then he placed the sombre packet in a hiding-place known only to Danglard. ‘To be read in the event of my death.’ After eating a snack, standing up, he tidied the rooms, sorted the linen and destroyed his private letters. You’re preparing for this as if you’d lost already, he said to himself, as he put the bin out in the hall. You’re a dead man.

Everything seemed ready. The judge would not need to break in. He would certainly have obtained a spare key through Michel Sartonna. Fulgence was a man who left nothing to chance. And to find the commissaire waiting for him with a gun would not surprise him. He knew he would be armed, just as he knew he would be alone.

By the time the judge learnt he had returned, he would have to plan his arrival either for tomorrow or the next day in the evening. Adamsberg could anticipate only one point of detail: the time. The judge was obsessed with symbolism. It would probably please him to try to dispose of Adamsberg at the same time of day as his brother thirty years ago. Between eleven and midnight. So there was the slight advantage of not being surprised by the time of day. He could therefore strike at Fulgence’s pride, where he thought he was untouchable. Adamsberg had bought a Mah Jong set on his way home. He set some of the tiles out on the coffee table and arranged the judge’s Hand of Honours on a rack. He added two flowers, one for Noella, one for Michel. The sight of his secret exposed to the light might provoke Fulgence to talk before he attacked. And that might give Adamsberg a few seconds’ start.

LX

ON SUNDAY EVENING AT TEN-THIRTY, ADAMSBERG PUT ON HIS THICK bullet-proof vest and holster again. He switched on all the lights to indicate he was at home, so that the great insect in its cave would crawl up into the light.

At eleven-fifteen, the front door clicked open, signalling the arrival of the Trident. The judge slammed the door casually behind him. It was exactly like him, Adamsberg thought. He was at home, anywhere and everywhere he pleased. ‘I can bring down a thunderbolt on your head whenever I wish.’

Adamsberg raised his gun, as the old man moved into his field of vision.

‘What a barbaric welcome, young man,’ said Fulgence in his gravel-toned voice.

Taking no notice of the muzzle pointing at him, the judge took off his long cape and threw it on a chair. For all Adamsberg’s anticipation of this moment, he had tensed at the sight of the tall old figure. He had aged in the face since their last meeting, but still held himself erect, with his haughty air and the same arrogant gestures Adamsberg remembered from his boyhood. The deep lines etched on the judge’s face enhanced even further that devilish beauty which the village women had admired and done penance for. The judge sat down and, crossing his legs, examined the game laid out on the table.

‘Sit down,’ he ordered. ‘We have a few things to talk about.’

Adamsberg stayed where he was, adjusting his range, watching both his enemy’s eyes and his hands. Fulgence smiled and leaned back in the chair, perfectly at his ease. The judge’s dazzling smile, which was an element of his beauty, was unusual in that it stretched back to the first molars. This feature had accentuated over time, giving his lean jaws a macabre air.

‘You’re not in my league, young man, and you never have been. Do you know why? Because when I kill, I kill. But you’re just a small-time cop. A banal and messy murder on a footpath changes you into a miserable creature. Yes, a very little man.’

Adamsberg walked slowly round behind Fulgence, holding the barrel of the gun a few inches from his neck.

‘Nervous too,’ went on the judge. ‘Just what I would expect from a little man.’

He pointed to the dragons and winds.

‘Quite correct,’ he said. ‘But it took you some time.’

Adamsberg followed the movements of that feared hand, a white hand with long fingers, and well-kept nails, its joints now enlarged with age, but moving at the end of its wrist with that strange, slightly dislocated grace that one sees in paintings by old masters.

‘The fourteenth tile is missing,’ he said, ‘and it will be a man.’

‘But not you Adamsberg,’ said Fulgence, ‘you’d dilute the hand, being of the wrong suit.’

‘A green dragon or a white one?’

‘What does it matter to you? Even in prison or in the grave, the last tile will not escape me.’

The judge pointed to the two flowers which Adamsberg had placed alongside the Hand of Honours.

‘I take it this represents Michel Sartonna, and this one Noella Corderon,’ he remarked.